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Habitat for Humanity to raise walls of new Hanover home

The house is designed to allow easy wheelchair access throughout to improve residents' quality of life

The Evening Sun

Posted:
04/23/2014 02:18:06 PM EDT

Habitat volunteers Carlos Zapata, left, and Michael Zeise, right, raise a wall at the future home of Habitat recipient Abby Sheely on April 24, the first day of York Habitat for Humanity's Blitz Build Days in Hanover. (Clare Becker - The Evening Sun)

Abby Sheely is handed a nail from another volunteer as she balances on the temporary scaffolding during the blitz build on April 24 in Hanover. Sheely says she and her daughter, Mekayla, are excited for the new house to be finished. (Clare Becker - The Evening Sun)

York Habitat for Humanity is giving a Hanover family a new start with a custom-built home.

Volunteers started to raise the exterior walls of a new home for Abby Sheely and her daughter, Mekayla, who is living with cerebral palsy, on April 24, the first day of York Habitat for Humanity's Blitz Build Days in Hanover.

In their currently home, Sheely has been carrying her daughter from room to room, she said April 24 as she helped with construction. But the single-story handicap-accessible house at 249 Kennedy Court will have three bedrooms, one bath and a single-car garage when construction is complete in November.

More than 13 years ago, baby Mekayla was born blue and three weeks overdue. Although she was the largest baby in the neonatal intensive care unit, weighing more than seven pounds, doctors gave her just a 50-50 chance of survival. It wasn't until Mekayla was 18 months old that she was officially diagnosed with cerebral palsy.

Doctors doubted she would even be able to sit on her own because her cerebral palsy makes the muscles in the lower half of her body too tight and those in her upper half too loose. But Mekayla learned sit and is working on being able to walk.

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Doctors doubt she will ever speak because of a possible stroke she had before she was born, but it doesn't stop Mekayla from being a effective communicator. She's become very technologically savvy, Sheely said in December, downloading updated vocabulary on Kit, the name given to the electronic voice of her Echo tablet computer.

But with a new home, custom built for them with a backyard and wide hallways, Mekayla will be able to overcome many of life's obstacles, without needing to have her mother carry her.

Abby Sheely helps her 12-year-old daughter Mekayla stand up in their apartment on Nov. 29. Mekayla, who has cerebral palsy, needs a wheelchair to move and is unable to navigate around their current living space. All that will change when the Sheely's move into a new Habitat for Humanity home next November. (Jeff Lautenberger The Evening Sun)

Get involved

The public is invited to participate in the ongoing construction of Abby and Mekayla Sheely's new home. Both skilled and unskilled laborers will be needed.

For more information, visit yorkhabitat.org or call York Habitat's volunteer coordinator at 717-854-6168 ext. 106.

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